Travis Snider

As the Greek myth goes, the Yellin’ of LaTroy is the closer that launched thousands of fantasy baseballers to the waiver wire to pick up his set-up man, Adam Ottavino. There’s something to that great myth. There’s also the Greek myth about the LaTrojan Horse. In that one, the Greeks sent a closer that seemed like a workhorse onto the field, but once the battle began the LaTrojan Horse opened up and inside was marshmallows and the opposing team made a campfire, lit up the LaTrojan Horse and ate Smores. There’s also the Greek myth of Mike Mostsuckass, but that isn’t appropriate for right now. LaTroy Hawkins was spotted one out in the ninth inning and still gave up three earned runs, allowing a homer to the 135-pound power slugger, Dexter Fowler (who had a slam and legs and went 2-for-5, 2 RBIs). Whether the Rockies come out and say Hawkins is finished or on thin ice, I’d still stash Ottavino. He’s about to become a 35-save guy. Anyway, here’s what else I saw this weekend in fantasy baseball:

Grey say, “Devon Travis my boo-boo.” Obama say, “What it do?” The Buy/Sell Column say, “Did you miss me?!” During the offseason, while you were diddling and thinking about how your middle school nickname was Skidmark, I, The Buy/Sell Column was re-reenacting scenes from The Act of Killing with puppets in a staged production on the western tip of Alaska because I’M HARDCORE! You want some Rip Taylor-wannabe, throwing confetti at your feet or you want a Buy/Sell Column that be cutting puppets’ necks with chicken wire while bundled up because it was frickin’ cold in Alaska during the winter!? Mental midgets, you want the latter! I’m eating puppet stuffing like I’m George “The Animal” Steele just to prove how crazy I am! Okay, enough of the hubbub on the tomfoolery, I love Devon Travis like his momma. Let’s throw out what he’s done this year so far for small sample size reasons — that’s what she said! Huh? — and simply look at Travis’s minor league stats. In Single-A, he hit .352 with 6 homers and 14 steals in 77 games. That’s a young man’s professional ball level, let’s move up higher. In Double-A last year in 100 games, he had 10 homers, 16 steals and a .298 average. He didn’t strike out a lot. He wasn’t getting by on his good looks and high BABIP (for him). If you take me out of the equation, ZiPS gives him 13 HRs, 11 SBs in only 116 games. Unless he gets hurt, there’s no reason why he can’t play at least 140 games, so that makes him a 17 HR, 15 SBs guy. Oh. Wait a minute, that’s glorious. Also, I think the Jays are gonna move him to the top of the order by May 1st. Let’s just pray that the Jays don’t do something stupid when Izturis is healthy again. Because…They say with Devon love comes first! We’ll make Devon a place on earth! Sing it, Belinda Carlisle! (By the by, Belinda Carlisle? Hot Cougar Alert! She could be 85 years old and sexy as all get out!) If you’re hurting at MI, I’d grab him, because I’m randy for Travis. Anyway, here’s some more players to buy or sell this week in fantasy baseball:

Dustin Pedroia will hit you two homers (3-for-5, 2 runs, 2 RBIs) and then run out after the game to help hawk papers, “Extr-ee, extr-ee, read all about it!” “Keep the change, kid.” “Thanks, mister!” While Pedroia sold Boston Heralds on the corner, Hanley Ramirez (also homered twice; 2nd one was a grand slam; 2-for-4, 2 runs, 5 RBIs) was tricked into a youth-rejuvenating oxygen chamber by piping in the smell of roasted pig. All the Red Sox did was put a game-used Sandoval jersey over a fan. Buncha tricksters! Or maybe that’s trickstahs in Boston. Also homering yesterday was Mookie Betts (2-for-4, 2 runs). Well, in this game. In other games, everyone homered at least once. If your fantasy team didn’t hit at least three homers yesterday, check again, you might’ve been accidentally looking at your fantasy football team. New commissioner-slash-new-step-dad, Rob Manfred, wants your love and if that means using juiced balls and no curfews, so be it! Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:

What’s that I see creeping around the corner? The stalker you’ve filed a restraining order against? Nah, our resident Creeper of the Week writer JFOH is fine; we’ve finally taught him what ‘personal bubble space’ and ‘bad touch’ is so he’s allowed to spend time with the other writers. Granted, he DOES have to wear oven mitts so he doesn’t get overly stimulated when we high five but he gets to enjoy Razzball potlucks again without the police getting involved. Baby steps! Of course, what’s creeping is the baseball season as this Sunday is the start of six months of that game we love so much…Daily Fantasy Sports! I heard you just say ‘what, huh’? If you don’t know what DFS is, just click on that link to get an idea of what we’re talking about here and then come back. Don’t worry, we’ll be waiting…ok, we’re still waiting…alright, some of us just didn’t take the speed reading class seriously, I guess. Heck, I even learned how to do it out loud. Sounded like the Micro Machines guy. Anyways, now that you’re intrigued by the concept, we’re gonna talk about what to do once you’ve signed up for DraftKings. Ah ‘but how do I sign up for DraftKings while supporting Razzball at the same time?’ is your question. I could read it on your face and let me tell you, ‘sharpie’ isn’t a good look on you. By clicking on the DraftKings link I’ve now given you thrice, you are given a signup referral from us and a free $3 ticket to any contest you choose. In fact, you COULD choose a $100,000 Moonshot tourney opening day with that $3 ticket or better yet, a free $15,000 tourney to kick off the season care of signing up through us. Or just keep it simple and join a multiplier or a head to head……if you don’t know what these words mean feel free to take a look at a review post of the league types to get yourself acquainted. Now that we’re past these link hurdles, though, let’s get down to da biz. Here’s some strategy to attack your DK games with for the 2015 Fantasy Baseball season…

Leave it to the man living in Oregon, born and raised in Washington to take you to Electric Ladyland in the title. PNW represent *tries showing PNW with flashy gang sign…fails…breaks all fingers*. Fine, I’ll just throw up the West Coast symbol a la 2Pac and be fine with it. Grey originally pinged me with the idea of heading up a league for the NFBC back in February. When I said yes, I assumed we were talking ‘Norwegian Female Bikini Challenge’ and graciously accepted. I mean they’re right next to Sweden; what could possibly go wrong? Well, ALOT could go wrong, let me tell you. Thankfully, I had Rudy‘s recap of his 2013 team and the wherewithal and the guile to forge my own path for my own team. For those interested in only RCL style of play…well, first off that’s the link to sign up for one and second of all, make an about face. This ain’t it. No trades and no FA pickups in season. Nope, you play against 15 other teams in 5×5 roto set up and draft 50 players a team. That’s 750 players. There’s only 30 teams and they only roster 25 players at the major league level at a time. So basically, we’re drafting the entire MLB in one fell swoop. That’s special. And hard. And especially hard. But let’s not talk about bedroom things just yet. Instead, let’s review my NFBC team for the 2015 Fantasy Baseball season…

Imagine you are given a perfect list of auction values. Like you walk to the top of Mt. Sinai and instead of the Ten Commandments, God hands you a sheet of perfect dollar values for your upcoming auction. (Relative to burning bushes and other ways God has made his “presence known”, I’d say this would rank about middle of the pack in terms of directness). What would you do with these values?

Let the hard sell begin. I feel like I’m that dealer with the bad comb over in the polyester suit at the used car lot trying to sell a jalopy. Minus the car analogy, I feel like I’m describing Woody Harrelson in Kingpin. You know the film and if you don’t, it’s streaming on Netflix right now. And by right now, I mean when I wrote this. If this post isn’t live before they’ve pulled it, mea culpa for getting you excited about it and also, mea culpa for getting you excited about it in general…it’s a Farrelly brothers movie and it’s not one of their best and ‘best + Farrelly bros’ google search should tell you all you need to know about that phrasing. BTW, this post isn’t sponsored by Netflix…but it should be! Seriously, Razz movie reviews. When does this happen? We can stick with the sports section. We’ll cover every 30 for 30! But I digress even further than I normally would. Given how we all feel about Travis Snider at this point in his career, you’d think he was Roy Munson on the baseball field, metal hook for a hand and all. It’s true, he never lived up to our dreams and probably won’t still. But in a deep league setting, that ain’t our concern. So with that in mind, let’s take a look at Snider and how he can help you with your nasty 7-10 split for the 2015 Fantasy Baseball season…

Wanna know how dedicated I am to you? I have your name tattooed on my tramp stamp area. Yeah, your name. Wanna know how else I’m dedicated to you? I flipped guys in and out of this post, moved a few to the top 80 outfielders for 2015 fantasy baseball, moved some more to the top 60 outfielders for 2015 fantasy baseball, didn’t move any into the top 40 outfielders for 2015 fantasy baseball, but considered it and made sure everyone was ranked to the best of my ability in this post. You’re thinking, “I’d hope you’re making sure your rankings in this post are correct, these are you rankings after all.” True, You. But, honestly, most of the guys in the second half of this post are irrelevant outside of deeper leagues. It’s simple math. If you’re in a 12-team league with five outfielders, 60 outfielders are drafted, then twenty more guys are drafted that have multi-position eligibility, another ten for utility slots or for some schmohawks that draft a bench outfielder and, add up all of that, and it equals Frank Ocean. Okay, the math is off there. It should’ve equaled, “About 90 outfielders drafted.” And everyone knows the fifth outfielder drafted doesn’t last long on your team. Sure, maybe Josh Hamilton bounces back (doubtful), or maybe Carl Crawford becomes the latest Zombino (more doubtful), but in most mixed leagues these guys aren’t even being drafted. In one mock draft I did for a magazine (they still make these? Where do you buy them?), Josh Reddick wasn’t even drafted and he’s ranked higher than all the guys here. Never the hoo! All the 2015 fantasy baseball rankings are under that linkie-ma-whosie. Anyway, here’s the top 100 outfielders for 2015 fantasy baseball:

The rain cooperated to let Derek Jeter play his final game at Yankee Stadium. Thank God, the Yankees needed the tarp for Suzyn Waldman. The Yankees presented Jeter with a replica of the Yankee Stadium on-deck circle. He is going to put it outside his house and instead of pine tar rags and donuts there will be lingerie and gift baskets. I don’t really care for his final lap around Fenway. I do agree with Olbermann that I think he should have bowed out of playing in Fenway. With that said (reversal time!), sometimes stars get grooved pitches on their final retirement jaunt. I grabbed Jeter two days ago in my leagues just in case that happens, and so far, so good. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:

At the end of the year, you can look at season long stats and try to build a DK lineup and I can pretty much promise you, disappointment will follow. You see, season is all but done, bro and bro-ettes. That means guys get tired. The studs of May, June and July give way to the youthful, the fresh guys of the DL and the DFAs who get invigorated by their new teams. De Aza, I’m looking directly at you…and many of my season long teams thank you. But truly, if we were to look at the baseball season like it were cut up into the different eras of the Beatles catalog, September would have to be the psychedelic phase. Everything you thought you knew about the baseball season just doesn’t apply right now. Oakland has been a ‘bad’ team for a couple of months yet their record on the surface says otherwise. Nelson Cruz leads the MLB in HRs with 39 but most of those HRs came in May with 13. And in the end, what happens works now in context but overlapping with the season it seems just completely out there. Going from ‘Love Me Do’ to ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ is quite the drastic jolt, Lennon. I Am The Walrus? Shut the f@#$ up, Donny! Now where was I? Oh yeah, all this to say, hanging your hat on season stats don’t get you nowhere. Case in point, Tyler Matzek. Season stats tell you he’s pretty mediocre. The ERA is 4.19…meh. The K/9 says 6.69…ambien pills. But let’s look at Tyler through a different lenses…say from the start of September. This Tyler has a 1.74 ERA over 20.2 IP to go with 19 K and 6 walks. For you non-mathies out there, that’s an 8.27 K/9 and a 2.61 BB/9 rate. Sure, I ain’t streaming him nor am I throwing him into any cash games but I think even with the plum matchup against the Padres, Matzek will be overlooked and underowned because he’s been ‘so bad for so long’. Well, so long to that so bad call. Ride the young arm to victory friends. And with that, let’s move on. Here’s some other hot takes for your Monday DK slate…